Commander X16

Yes, "signed" means 2's complement. The example values are just there for demonstration; they're not calculated from anything, it's just to show a triangle on the screen. If you wanted to draw a triangle based on vertices, here's what you do: 1) Identify Vertices For each triangle you want...

You can use all of the 65C02 opcodes except the RMB/SMB/BBS/BBR opcodes. Those are Rockwell extensions for the 2A03 version of the chip that's in the NES Sorry to interrupt, but the NES's 2A03 was manufactured by Ricoh and contains only the original 6502 instruction set, with none of the newer opco...

I got mine, installed my X16 into it, and I'm as happy as can be with it so far. :D Here's some stuff I noted down in case it's helpful for anyone else: The random white square with the slot in it is for when you mount an expansion card; it goes on the outside when you do. Board first, then power/re...

I grew up with Adlib Tracker II, and towards the end of my time with it, they had introduced a feature where each channel had two effects columns instead of just one. This might be a simple, user-friendly thing you could try out to see how well it gets around the usual effects limitations, though ma...

Something unique about the X16 is that didn't start as a classical 6502 machine; when it was moved to an 8-bit CPU, it was specifically the modern 65c02, so those newer opcodes had been standard this whole time, and developers had gotten used to them by now. Thinking about this, it makes sense why t...

The first method relies on non-existent RAM reading back as $A0 due to bus capacitance I'm not familiar with that. "Bus capacitance" is like if you shouted into an alleyway, heard your own voice echo back at you, and mistook that for being another person responding to you. When the CPU en...

How does doing the same thing in 12 lines make it more elegant than doing it in six? The first method relies on non-existent RAM reading back as $A0 due to bus capacitance when reading from address $A000, while also being vulnerable to RAM actually existing but "accidentally" being set to...

I imagine the actual game engine would use key-down and key-up events instead of character input events, which would allow diagonals.

Since the 816 is a 16-but processor, what advantages does it have over the 65C02 in terms of the X16. For instance, can we now access all 2 MBs of RAM without page switching? Sadly, the high-memory still requires bank switching with $0000; the X16 architecture is unaware of the '816's banking regis...

There's something about printing random characters in random colors all over the screen that really brings me back to being a kid messing around in qbasic.